ZULTANSKI, Steven
Help

Death-obsessed, whiny, disengaged, and overinvested—the four long poems in Help theatricalize feelings that are usually considered childish. Steve Zultanski set up conversations and games between friends which were then transcribed, edited, and embellished. Participants were asked to talk about the deaths of acquaintances, secret hiding places, unmet needs, and childhood methods for rejecting attention. The resulting poems mostly read like scripts for unrealized plays. Real-life speech is pinned to the page, stuck. Individual voices appear like specimens. Someone demands endless love, but not from anyone in particular. Memories are intensely personal but frustratingly general, like the psychological droppings of missing protagonists. The effect is both unsettling and surprisingly warm. [publishers’ note]

Published by Golias Books, 2024
Poetry